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Ducks winger David Perron will be out week-to-week with an upper-body injury and has been sent back to Anaheim for evaluation. Perron, 27, has eight goals and 20 points in 28 games since joining the Ducks.

David Perron has been one of the best offensive weapons the Ducks have had since coming over in a mid-January trade from the Pittsburgh Penguins, but Anaheim may be without the 27-year-old winger for at least a few games after he suffered what appeared to be a serious upper-body injury.

Perron was forechecking during Sunday’s tilt with the Jets when he clipped skates with Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele. Perron’s momentum caused him to fall forwards and topple into the boards with his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. Immediately, Perron was writhing on the ice in pain before collecting himself off the ice, leaving his stick behind and heading straight to the visiting dressing room:

Perron’s inability to move his right arm while skating off the ice is the first sign something wasn’t right, but he didn’t return to the game and caused the lines to be shaken up a bit for the remainder of Sunday’s game. And if there was any hope Perron had been held out as a precaution, Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau’s words weren’t reassuring post-game.

Following Sunday's game, Boudreau said he wasn’t sure if the Perron would require an MRI or what the next steps were, and told the Orange County Register’s Eric Stephens that the coaching staff was only told Perron wouldn’t be returning Sunday.

“It’s a tough loss for us,” Boudreau said. “I don’t know how long or anything. It’s an upper-body injury. It’ll be better evaluated in the next day or two.”

There’s no telling exactly how long Perron will be out at this point, but the Ducks announced Monday that Perron is "week-to-week" and will head back to Anaheim instead of remaining on the Ducks' current five-game Canadian road trip. Anaheim has stops in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Edmonton coming up before returning home to open up a four-game home stand.

The obvious hope is that Perron’s injury doesn't cost him any action come the post-season. Since coming over to Anaheim on Jan. 17, Perron has eight goals and 20 points, which puts him fifth in scoring on the Ducks over that span. Perron’s production has given Anaheim some much needed depth scoring, and his usefulness on the power play has been evident. He has three goals and seven points with the extra man since being dealt to the Ducks.

Anaheim is currently four points back of the first place Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific Division with 11 games remaining.

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ECHL defenseman Anthony Calabrese is “lucky to be alive” after a “careless, reckless” hit, and Tyler Murovich, who delivered the blow, has been given a 12-game suspension as a first-time offender.

There are few plays scarier than seeing a player hit from behind and sent headfirst into the boards. That kind of play is made that much harder to watch when knowing the severity of the injury suffered.

During an ECHL contest on Nov. 24 between the Norfolk Admirals and Atlanta Gladiators, ECHL veteran Tyler Murovich delivered an incredibly dangerous shove to the back of Anthony Calabrese, a 24-year-old defenseman who’s only 12 games into his ECHL career.

The result of the hit was frightening. Calabrese was left laying face down on the ice, near motionless. The Admirals rearguard would eventually be placed on a stretcher, taken from the ice and transported to hospital.

That may seem harsh to some given that Murovich is a first-time offender, but given the severity of Calabrese’s injury, it actually seems like a somewhat light punishment.

As a result of the hit, Calabrese suffered broken C7 and T1 vertebrae. In simpler terms, he broke both his neck and his back. Oh, and he also punctured his lung. In fact, Calabrese told The Virginian-Pilot’s Jim Hodges that doctors told the young center that he’s “lucky to be alive.”

“It was a miracle, and they say I’m going to make a full recovery,” Calabrese told Hodges. “It’s going to be a long road, but I’d rather be alive than be in a wheelchair the rest of my life.”

What helped Calabrese escape with his life, he told Hodges, was advice he had gotten early in his career from a high school coach. Calabrese was taught that if he was ever going into the boards head first to lift his chin and turn to the side in an attempt to avoid taking the brunt of the impact with the top of his head.

“That’s honestly the only thing that registered in my mind when I was going in: at the last minute, pick my head up,” Calabrese told Hodges. “I remember picking my head up and turning it to the right.”

Thankfully, doctors told Calabrese that he can eventually return to the ice and that the injuries suffered from the hit won’t cost him his career. His spinal cord, he told Hodges, wasn’t damaged due to the hit. And, as hard as it may be to believe, doctors said it was the “best possible break” in a situation such as Calabrese’s.

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Passion drives Boston College coach Jerry York to go old school

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Passion drives Boston College coach Jerry York to go old school

Faced with the prospect of not being able to fly to a game this weekend, Jerry York wasn't about to let that stop him from coaching Boston College.

Back in the late 1970s, Jerry York was the youngest coach in the nation. Now he’s the second oldest, behind Red Berenson, who turned 77 yesterday. York is in his 45th season behind the bench of a Division I team and he’s coached a mind-boggling 1,740 games. He’s won 1,025 of them, which is exactly 100 ahead of Ron Mason, who’s No. 2 on the all-time wins list. He’s guided five national championship teams and put countless players in the NHL, from Hall of Famer Rob Blake to current NHLers such as Johnny Gaudreau, Cory Schneider, Brian Boyle and Patrick Eaves.

In other words, he had perhaps earned the right to sit this one out. The 71-year-old dean of Division I hockey could have told associate coach Greg Brown to take the bench for one night. But faced with the prospect of not being able to fly to South Bend, Ind., to coach his Boston College Eagles against Notre Dame Saturday night because he’s recovering from surgery to repair a detached retina, York instead went old school for the 900-mile, 18-hour journey.

While the rest of the team chartered out of Boston Friday afternoon for a 90-minute flight, York had his director of hockey operations, John Hegarty, drive him to Albany Thursday afternoon. From there, York hopped an Amtrak train bound for South Bend that got in at about 8:30 Friday morning. And the most stunning thing about all of this is that York did this coach one game, not a weekend series. In fact, he figures Saturday night’s game will go until about 10 p.m., which means he’ll be able to take an Uber from the Compton Family Ice Arena to catch the midnight train that will let him retrace his steps, meaning he should get back to Boston sometime Sunday evening.

York missed six games early in the season while he was recovering from the surgery, but wasn’t about to sit any more out. So there he’ll be Saturday night, behind the Eagles bench, sporting an eye-patch and trying to help his team improve on its 8-0-1 record in Hockey East. It’s already the best start of any team in league history, but that’s not what is motivating him. It’s the passion for coaching that still drives him.

“All I need is a parrot on my right shoulder and I’ll be a buccaneer,” York said. “I think for me, this was a telltale sign that I still want to do this, that I have the passion to do it. This was a key indicator, if I didn’t want to do it I think that would be telling me something. I see Red Berenson at coaching conferences and we both like golf and other things, but I’d still rather be coaching than doing anything else. I love being behind the bench and I love tying up my skates at 2:30 every day.”

And York has a lot to be excited about this season. Despite losing seven players to the NHL from last year’s team, the Eagles have been a Hockey East juggernaut this season. Despite losing seven underclassmen to the NHL, the Eagles are the top team in their league and with an overall record of 13-5-1 has them the No. 4-ranked team in the nation. They’re second in the NCAA in goals scored with 71 and their goal differential of plus-30 is No. 1 in the nation.

“We have 13 freshmen this year,” York said. “That’s a lot of new guys. We were prepared to lose maybe three guys (to the NHL), but we got surprised and we had to scramble. We had to almost rebuild the whole program.”

It has helped that freshman Joe Woll, a third-round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs, has more than filled the void left by Demko. The 6-foot-4, 202-pound native of St. Louis has been the team’s backbone and a large reason why the Eagles have given up only nine first-period goals in 19 games this season. They’re also outscoring their opponents 28-12 in the second period. The Eagles are led offensively by a small, skilled kid by the name of Gaudreau from New Jersey, just as they were two years ago. Matthew Gaudreau, whose brother Johnny won the Hobey Baker Award with the Eagles three years ago and turned pro with the Calgary Flames, leads the team with 6-16-22 totals in 19 games.

“This isn’t the most talented team I’ve ever had,” York said, “but it’s the most enjoyable for me to coach in a long time.”

The game against Notre Dame will be the last before the holidays. That means York won’t have to get on a plane until a trip to Pittsburgh after Christmas. He sees his doctor Dec. 23 and hopes to be cleared to fly after that. If not, he’ll likely be on the train to Pittsburgh because he’s not about to let a long travel day keep him from behind the bench.

“It’s not in my fabric,” he said of the prospect of missing games. “I feel just like Punch Imlach.”

Bettman says next season's salary cap could go ‘a couple or so million up'

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Bettman says next season's salary cap could go ‘a couple or so million up'

The NHL could be looking at a $2 million rise in the salary cap for next season, but early projections should be taken with a grain of salt. In December 2015, a potential rise of $3 million was projected. The upper limit increased by only $1.6 million.

It’s still far too soon to tell, but early estimations have it looking like the salary cap could jump up as much as $2 million ahead of the 2017-18 campaign.

Following the NHL’s Board of Governors meetings on Thursday, commissioner Gary Bettman was asked about what the league sees as a potential cap for the upcoming campaign, which, among other things, will see the introduction of the league’s 31st franchise in the Vegas Golden Knights.

Bettman didn’t give an exact figure as to what the cap will look like, but he said there’s the potential for the upper limit to move by roughly $2 million.

"There's always a range, but it's something we're going to have to look at very carefully in terms of how may be best to approach it," Bettman said, according to NHL.com’s Dan Rosen. "The cap could range from where it is now to a couple or so million up, but we're going to all have to focus on what makes most sense going forward.”

Any increase in the cap would be good news for the players, especially pending unrestricted free agents looking to land long-term, big-money deals. St. Louis Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk and Tampa Bay Lightning netminder Ben Bishop are two of the biggest names currently slated to hit the open market come July 2017.

Of course, there’s a chance the cap stays flat, which Bettman also indicated, but said he’d prefer to speak with the NHLPA about a possible flat cap before answering questions about it.

Before any GMs with tight cap situations or fans who’re praying their respective teams get some cap breathing room go celebrating, it’s worth noting that early projections for the 2016-17 salary cap saw the upper limit increasing by close to $3 million. That would have seen the cap rise from $71.4 million to $74.5 million, and anyone paying close attention to the financials of the league’s teams is aware that rise in the upper limit didn’t quite come to fruition.

Instead, the cap for the current campaign is $71.4 million, and the rise is mostly thanks to the NHLPA using their five-percent “escalator clause.” Had the players not used the clause, there was some concern the cap could have actually dipped from the past season to the current campaign. Some projections had the cap possibly falling below $70 million for 2016-17.

A rise of $2 million would be only slightly more than the $1.6 million increase from 2015-16 to 2016-17, and it would be one of the smallest increases since the salary cap was introduced in 2005-06. From 2008-09 to 2009-10, the cap rose by only $100,000 and there was no rise in the cap from 2011-12 to 2013-14, with teams allowed to spend to a $60-million limit during the 2012-13 lockout-shortened campaign.

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Cal Clutterbuck’s five-year extension won’t bite the Islanders for a couple of seasons, but when it does, it could cost the Islanders more than just money and cap flexibility.

Cal Clutterbuck is on pace to have his highest scoring season as a New York Islander, he’s averaging more ice time than he has in any other year with the club and he was given an alternate captaincy ahead of the campaign.

And even with all that, it’s hard to understand how exactly the Islanders saw fit to have the 29-year-old winger a five-year, $17.5-million extension.

Clutterbuck is undoubtedly one of the best at playing the specific role he plays, which is to say that if you’re looking for a hard-nosed player who’s going to put his body on the line, he’s your guy. Fans love him, teammates assuredly do, too, and he’s exactly the kind of bottom-six player that most GMs around the league would love to have on their team at the right price.

Problem is that it’s really tough to call $3.5 million per season the right price, and that’s exactly what Clutterbuck will be earning come the start of the 2017-18 campaign. That’s roughly the same cap hit as others such as Kyle Turris, Cam Atkinson, Joel Ward and Matt Read will be carrying next season, and that’s only to name a few.

Another worrisome part about the deal is that it’s hard to see how even the biggest fitness freak could maintain their ability to play Clutterbuck’s style into their mid-30s. The wear and tear on Clutterbuck’s body by the time he reaches the back-end of the contract could be substantial. Despite him playing up the lineup right now, he’s better suited to a bottom-six role and definitely will be later in his career. If he loses a step, $3.5 million will be a lot to fork over for a fourth-line winger and it’ll be a deal that’s near impossible to move.

But it goes beyond simply the signing of Clutterbuck, because there has now been a trio of deals handed out by Islanders GM Garth Snow that have been puzzling — and, truthfully, concerning — when it comes to the future of the team.

Ahead of free agency, there was the signing of Casey Cizikas to a five-year, $16.75-million deal. Then came the monster seven-year, $38.5-million contract inked by free agent Andrew Ladd. The Clutterbuck signing is No. 3.

It should be noted that the deals for Clutterbuck, Cizikas and Ladd don’t actually prevent the Islanders from doing all that much in the next two seasons. In fact, as of next season, every single current Islander forward will be locked up to a contract. Come 2018-19, when John Tavares becomes a free agent, the slate is wiped rather clean with the team able to operate with more than $40 million in cap space. Beyond Tavares, the Islanders’ UFAs come 2018-19 will include Josh Bailey, Nikolai Kulemin, Jason Chimera, Mikhail Grabovski and Thomas Hickey.

And $40-plus million can buy you a lot, and certainly it will allow the Islanders to hang on to Tavares, if he chooses to remain with the team. (Not to say he won’t, but a lot can happen between now and July 2018.) All the UFAs, save maybe Bailey and Hickey, will be allowed to head elsewhere, as well. A restricted free agent deal for Brock Nelson could be pricey, but the Islanders should realistically be able to lock him up. As of right now, the Islanders will also be without an NHL goaltender under contract, but there will be stop-gap options available. So, yes, the Islanders should be fine in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

However, things could get dicey after that.

Come 2019-20, the Islanders will watch Travis Hamonic become a UFA, see the end of entry-level deals for Mathew Barzal, Anthony Beauvillier, Joshua Ho-Sang and Michael Dal Colle and still have more than $12.3 million locked up in Ladd, Cizikas and Clutterbuck. Finding the money to lock up those five players, as well as any others who could be seeking new contracts around that time, will be incredibly difficult.

The cost of those trio of deals goes beyond money and cap space, though, because there’s a serious possibility the Islanders could waste some of the best years of Tavares’ career. If the Islanders can only afford to hang on to the pieces they have without being able to add any veteran or prime-aged players, it gets hard to see how this franchise takes the next step forward, even with Tavares in his prime.

They’ll need a few adds on defense, a few forwards who can contribute and the goaltending situation will need to be figured out. Ilya Sorokin should give Islanders fans hope, but even the best goaltending prospects sometimes don’t pan out in the big league. If the Islanders need to improve in goal when their prospects are hitting their stride, the money spent in the past seven months could very well prevent that from becoming a reality.

It’s big-money, head-scratcher deals like Clutterbuck’s that teams have had to buy their way out of in the past, and it’s scary to think the Islanders could have set themselves up for the same fate three times over. The Islanders' post-season performance was reason for excitement, but now it seems, more than anything, there's cause for concern about what the future could hold.